


One beat, two beat, no beat, heartbeat

by kieren_Freaking_Walker



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Men Crying, Mental Breakdown, Minor Violence, season 2 spoilers if you haven't seen season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 12:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2150286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kieren_Freaking_Walker/pseuds/kieren_Freaking_Walker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wrote this up on tumblr at the request of another user, and thought I'd share it here.</p><p>Simon gets a phone call from a distressed Walker Household.<br/>There's something wrong with Kieren</p>
            </blockquote>





	One beat, two beat, no beat, heartbeat

Simon was just about to go out when the phone rang.  
He picked it up slowly, thinking it might be someone looking for Amy, someone who didn’t know she no longer lived there.  
"Hello?"  
There was a commotion on the other end of the line, the sound of things smashing, and people yelling “Simon? Simon please tell me that’s you!”

"Who is this?" was his response, as he strained his ears to hear.

"It’s Jem, Simon we need your help, there’s something wrong with Kieren!" her voice was strained. Simon heard a door close, and another yell, accompanied by a smash.

"What do you mean? Whats wrong with him?" Simon asked, moving towards the front door of the bungalow almost instinctively.

"I—I don’t know! He was fine a few minutes ago, doin’ the dishes and then he just snapped! He started smashing plates and freaking o—please Simon, we don’t know what to do…"  
  
"I’m on my way. Be careful."  
Simon threw the phone onto the sofa in the lounge room and was out the door, moving as fast as his dead legs would allow.

                                          

* * *

 

It was Sue who answered the door for him when he finally got to the Walker house, her face red and tear-stained. Jem quickly followed behind her, and pulled Simon inside impatiently.  
"Where is he now?" Simon asked, noticing it was a little more quiet now, than it had been over the phone.

Jem let out a shaky sigh, and pointed up the stairs “He’s in his room…probably breaking more things.” she said quietly “He’s gone completely mental!”

“ _Jemima_!” Sue hissed under her breath at her daughter.  
"What? He has! Whens the last time he lashed out like that Mum?" Jem waited a moment before answering her own question " _Rick_.” _  
_

Simon was already halfway up the stairs by then, as the two continued to talk in hushed voices.  
Simon was then met by Steve, who was standing outside Kieren’s bedroom, looking lost and hopeless.  
"Oh, Hi there Simon. So Jem got through to yer, did she?"  
Simon merely nodded in response, and reached a hand out for the doorknob, glancing to Steve with an eyebrow cocked “May I?”

Steve nodded, and backed away from the door, and down the hall.  
Simon opened the door slowly, squeezing through the gap and closing it shut behind him as quietly as he could.  
He found Kieren silently ripping his paintings off the walls, throwing them on to the pile already growing on his bed.  
His face, or what Simon could see of it, was wet and blotchy. He’d been crying.

"Kieren?"

Kieren ignored Simon, ripping off another painting off the wall, a painting of Amy. He didn’t throw this one however, he held it tightly in his hands, and stared down at it, almost as if, if he stared long enough, she might come to life on the canvas.

“ _Kieren?_ " Simon repeated carefully. Noticing that the boy was wearing his cover-up again, and his brown contacts.

Kieren let go of the painting, letting it fall at his feet, and covered his mouth his both hands, like he might scream or explode at any moment. His legs seemed to give out underneath him, and he fell to his knees, still covering his mouth.  
New tears began to spill over.

Simon was kneeling beside him now, more afraid for the boy now. If he needed to lash out, Simon was more than happy to be caught in the crossfire, if it helped him.  
"Kieren? Kieren talk to me, Whats going on?" he demanded, reaching out and placing a hand on the broken boys back.

A strangled noise escaped through Kieren’s hands, and he seemed to crumple in on himself at Simon’s touch.  
He lowered his hands, which were shaking violently, and he picked up the painting again.  
Where he had removed his hands, there was now a dark red smear across the boys face. Blood.

"Kieren…" Simon reached up, and wiped away the smear with his sleeve as best as he could. He then pulled the painting out of Kieren’s hands, and took the shaky hands in his own.  
His right hand had a dark red line ranging from the base of his thumb across the heel of his palm. Kieren was bleeding.  _Kieren was bleeding_!

"She was coming alive…" Kieren choked out, looking down at his own hands with Simon "She was coming alive again! Benched before she got to play the game—Again!"

Simon looked up, cupping Kieren’s face with his own two hands, forcing the boy to meet his worried gaze “Kieren, what are you talking about?”

Kieren’s face twisted in agony as another sob tore through his chest, his eyes unseeing through the tears that filled his eyes “She was  _coming back to life_ , and Maxine Martin  ** _murdered_**  her!”

"Coming back to—what?"

Kieren snatched one of Simon’s hands from his face, and placed it over his chest “I’m alive… _I’m alive_  and she’s not!” he choked out.  
It took a moment for Simon to understand what he was feeling; A steady, if not a little distressed, heartbeat.

It then made a little more sense. Kieren wasn’t wearing his cover-up, he hadn’t put in his contacts, he was alive, he was alive and normal, and he was distraught.

"Kieren this is a good thing!" Simon insisted, hand still over the boys heart, as if he feared it might stop beating at any moment.

Kieren shook his head, pulling his face free of Simon’s other hand. “No…No it’s not…I get to live, I get to come back, and she gets  _nothing…It’s not **fair**_.”  
  
Simon pulled Kieren into a hug then “No, What Maxine Martin did to Amy was unfair, you coming back to life isn’t! Amy wouldn’t want you to—-To feel so much guilt! This is not your fault!”  
Kieren began to cry again, and Simon didn’t pull away. He held the boy, for what could have been hours, and waited for Kieren to calm down.  
  
Turns out Kieren had woken up that morning, feeling a little different, but he’d been unable to put his finger on it. He hadn’t seen himself in the mirror, because he liked to avoid those. It only dawned on him when he cut his hand on a knife in the sink, and it had begun to bleed, that he was alive again, that his heart beat in his chest was the steady rhythm he’d been hearing since he woke up, and it was all too much for him. Everything he’d been holding in, since the funeral, since the graveyard, it all came out at once, in a violent wave.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!  
> original post can be found here : http://talk-to-kieren-walker.tumblr.com/post/94962221658/simon-and-kieren-kieren-has-a-small-sarcasm


End file.
